Elephone P6000 MT6732 Review – 2GB/16GB OTG OGS 720P

The Elephone P6000 is one of the first MT6732 mobiles to hit the consumer market. This is one of MediaTek’s new budget offerings and promises to bring an evolution in performance in Sub-$200 phones.

Elephone P6000 review build and style

The style of the P6000 is an interesting  part from the standard snap on back. While most phones have a back piece separate from the sides, the Elephone P6000 back piece includes the sides and wraps around the phone.

I like this style. There’s a sleek, well defined line where the side meets the back portion, and the way it’s designed here doesn’t add any thickness.

There are no creaks or loose spots on the back piece, and the phone feels solid and physically well built.

The most interesting aspect of the P6000 design is the blue home button, which is blue when not lit, and when lit looks very Tronesque.IMG_2492

The menu button and back button are unlit, tinted blue dots. This is a very cool looking addition, and once again we see how a simple and easily achieved design element can make a world of difference in how slick a phone looks.

Elephone P6000 review frequency support

Unfortunately, unlike the P3000, the Elephone P6000 has support for only 900/2100. It lacks 850/1900 which would have made it 3G compatible worldwide, but if you’re in an area that uses 900 3G it’s a step up from 850/2100.

The P6000 also has LTE 800/900/1800/2100/2600 (1/3/7/8/20). As always, make sure you know what frequency your carrier is using prior to purchasing a mobile.

Here are a couple of links if you’re unsure:

Elephone P6000 review display

The display on the Elephone P6000 can be rated as very good. Bright, with excellent viewing angles and is a true IPS/OGS display.

elephone-p6000-review-IMG_2506

MT6732 provides plenty of juice to push 720p, and I think it’s a good choice Elephone made with this phone. 1080p offers little benefit to viewing pleasure, but can noticeably reduce performance and battery life.

720p on the P6000 is the perfect compromise and adds a very obvious increase in clarity from 480p/540p. It’s not perfectly retina, but it’s very close with a PPI of 293.

elephone-p6000-review-IMG_4276

Elephone P6000 review RAM/ROM storage

Elephone has begun to offer their phones up with all storage fully relegated to internal.

The RAM is a true 2GB. This is more than enough required to push Android smoothly, and adds a substantial cushion of apps and browser tabs staying in memory when multitasking.

The storage in the Elephone P6000 is 16GB. Interestingly, Elephone has begun to offer their phones up with all storage fully relegated to internal.

The downside is that if you factory reset you will lose all of your videos, pictures etc… An easy way around this is to use the expandable SD slot to store images and important files.

All storage on internal
All storage on internal

The upside to the one big partition is that you can install a huge number of apps without worrying about running out of space. I think quite a few people will be pleased to see storage partitioned as it is on the Elephone P6000.

Elephone P6000 review OS

The OS on the P6000 is reported as KitKat 4.4.4. If it’s truly KitKat 4.4.4, it’s the first I have seen of it on China mobiles.  Whether it is or isn’t, the OS is very smooth and quick in moving from app to app.

elephone-p6000-review-Screenshot_2015-01-12-19-50-21

Fast touch typing goes off without a hitch. I experienced no lag or double taps required.

Elephone appears to be releasing all of their phones with pre-rooted KitKat.

I tested Facebook, Skype, Play Store and the standard array of apps I normally use to test phones with and they all ran flawlessly. Play store apps download, install and update without issue.

Auto-brightness is working and transitioning smoothly between levels.

Also notable is that Elephone appears to be releasing all of their phones with pre-rooted KitKat. The root is true and I updated the SU binary from within Android via the SuperSU control app.

This is in stark contrast to most smart phone manufacturers, and can save the beginner user a ton of trouble and power users a bit of time

Elephone P3000 review GPS

GPS on the Elephone P3000 was very quick to pick up the first few satellites and achieve a lock. Within a minute I had connected to all 13. Signal strength is quite good, reaching into the mid-high 30’s even indoors and occasionally into the 40’s when outdoors.

GPS Full Monty
GPS Full Monty
Use the limited time coupon code “EPLM” at www.gearbest.com to get the P6000 for only $151.99.

So far I’m liking the P6000 quite a bit. It doesn’t hurt that it carries the new MT6732 SoC, which is a big step up from the MT6582 in terms of CPU, and an enormous step up when compared to it’s GPU.

I have started a comparison of the SoC’s going on in this post. There you can see the Antutu scores of both SoCs and there will be more benchmarks to come.

Discuss this article on the forum

Pricewise, what Elephone has done here is excellent. A new, powerful SoC with a very good IPS/OGS display, 2GB of RAM and generous 16GB storage.

elephone-p6000-review-p6000-review

Within the next couple of days I will have camera sample images, as well as WiFi, OTG, mic/earpiece/speaker, further benchmarks, including a battery life test, as well as the conclusion.

This article originally published by me at go.chinaphonearena.com

Comments

9 responses to “Elephone P6000 MT6732 Review – 2GB/16GB OTG OGS 720P”

  1. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    elephone does have some excellent models out and coming soon but as stated on there offical forum there seems to be lots of problems with this device that you are not telling us about

    1. Damian Parsons Avatar
      Damian Parsons

      Hello Paul, thanks for commenting. I’ve been on the Elephone forum and the common issues stated there are as I’ve stated here — OTG/Compass/Jumpy finger scrolling.

      As to “lots of problems”, there was one fellow who had a problem with the camera, and another fellow with GPS, but for me these both worked flawlessly.

      Also be aware that many people attempt mods to their phones and end up causing more problems than they solve. Both the camera and GPS are classic examples of this, though I’m not saying that’s the case with these people.

      Regards

      1. Paul Avatar
        Paul

        thankyou, will await your elephone p5000 review as interested in the battery side and if it will come with android 5.0

  2. Stefan Avatar
    Stefan

    About this phone.
    Looks very nice, and thank´s Damian for the review.
    Could someone tell me if it works in scandinavia, iceland, norway..
    don´t know how to find out, sorry!

    Greetings

    1. Paul Avatar
      Paul

      my advice is check the elephone support forums out as the problems keep getting bigger and worser. im going to not get a elephone again due to the problems i had with one of there models. why not try the thl 500 model which is a bit expensive but comes with a 5000 battery

    2. Damian Parsons Avatar
      Damian Parsons

      The P6000 was a quite good phone. The main problems were that the OTG wasn’t working and any type of movement (scrolling/dragging etc…) with your finger would jump from matrix point to matrix point, rather than smoothly.

      I would have to agree with Paul as I’ve tested several Elephone’s and they all came with these defects which could be considered critical. The only Elephone I’ve tested that was perfect was the redesigned P3000.

      I recommend you check out the Ulefone Be Pro, which also has the MT6732 and 2GB RAM. Also see my recent post regarding Elephone. It’s not my intent to bad mouth Elephone, but let’s just say they’ve been frustrating.

      1. Paul Avatar
        Paul

        i agree with you damian, elephone needs to send phones out to reviewers for a month of testing. the kingszone z1 looks nice option but why not try the leagoo elite 2

        1. Damian Parsons Avatar
          Damian Parsons

          I really don’t need a month with a phone to tell if it’s good or not. But at least a solid week is usually required. I mean to say, that if a phone has flaws, they will usually show within a day to a week. It’s extremely rare for a phone to show *new* flaws after a week of use.

          I’ve sold the P6000 to a friend. But for him, the jumpy scrolling and OTG not working are not a problem. I trust that the phone is otherwise very good. It’s not very often that you need precise smooth scrolling, and I rarely use OTG, so for some users this may not be an issue at all. Still, it’s very strange to release a phone with such basic functionality not intact.

          The problem is that out of five Elephones I’ve reviewed, they’ve all had some issue except for the 2nd P3000. They are putting on a great game face, that’s for sure. I have written in more detail in one of the main posts on the blog here.

          You read my mind Paul. We are looking at purchasing a Kingzone Z1 for review at the moment. It’s a great looking phone with excellent specs and quad-band 3G. I will take a look at the Leagoo as well.

          In regards to the P5000, it also has a critical flaw. The camera refuses to focus (stuck on infinity focus). I’ve sent videos of it and pictures to Elephone, but it’s just one excuse after another from them. Which is to be expected. These are the chances we sometimes take.

          1. Paul Avatar
            Paul

            thats true, cheapest ive seen for the kingszone z1 is $199.99 at to2c.com which is a good site. leagoo elite 2 looks nice at under $150.00. cannot wait for your reviews on the devices soon and also ulefone is bringing a new device soon

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